Why Birds Exist Without Teeth

December 15, 2014 6:54 AM

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Birds do not have teeth, just like turtles, baleen whales, and anteaters. However, this situation did not always exist. According to a new study, birds were known to have teeth about 116 million years ago. The study included the researchers analyzing the modern birds and the mutated remains of their tooth genes so that they could figure out why adentulism, i.e. the absence of teeth, was developed in these birds.

While the fossil record of ancient birds is very minor and fragmented, the genes of the modern birds can vastly help I clarifying why such a change happened in the lineage of birds as the time passed. According to one of the researchers in the study, the DNA is a great tool for understanding the evo...